by K. M. Peyton
‘Murder who? they’ll say. It’s all terribly flimsy when you think it through,’ Christian said. ‘This murderer, if he exists, has got everything on his side.’
‘So what do we do if Arnold doesn’t turn up?’ Jodie asked. ‘Shop the Russians?’
‘On the evidence of the gloves? Without Arnold and the holes in his neck, there’s no evidence there either. Boris doesn’t look like a crook to me.’
Boris was smiling amiably all the time this conversation was going on, presumably thinking it was all about music.
‘It’s not Boris. It’s his minders. I think Claws is that ferret-faced one,’ Nutty declared.
‘We’ll see what happens this morning. Arnold’ll probably turn up. If not—’ Christian shrugged. He had meant to get some practice in before the orchestral rehearsal, but now it was too late. They were playing their first concert in the afternoon, leaving by coach for a community hall some twenty miles away, and there were a few sections he was still not truly confident about. Christian took his music seriously, and this lark with Arnold, a good wheeze at the beginning, was fast getting too complicated.
They went out to the ballroom with the crowd at the appointed time: still no sign of Arnold. The rehearsal got under way and they played the music they had to present in the afternoon. Nutty had lots of cymbal crashes at the climax of her favourite piece; Hoomey had some delicate triangle work to perfect and Jodie and Christian each had lots of solos. Between them their minds were fully occupied. In the break for elevenses talk was all of tempo, semi-quavers and easily-forgotten repeat signs rather than claws, crooks and stiffs.
When John Pike went back to his timpani he found Arnold sitting under his drum-cover.
‘Blimey, where’ve you sprung from?’
Arnold was wet through, as white as a ghost and shivering with cold.
‘He tried to wipe me out last night! I’m not leaving you lot again!’
‘Who did? Who is it?’
‘How can I tell, in the dark? Chased me all down to the river.’
‘How did he know you were there?’
‘You tell me. Who knew where I was?’
Boris, thought John Pike, but didn’t say.
‘I found out – the body – who the body is, was,’ said Arnold.
The conductor rapped for attention and raised his baton to start. Arnold bobbed down. John Pike dropped his drumsticks and as the piece opened with a drum-roll nothing happened.
‘Mr Pike?’ queried the conductor.
‘Sorry, sir!’
Christian looked behind, amused, and saw Arnold’s face disappearing round the side of the bass drum.
John Pike started and Christian then missed his cue, shell-shocked by seeing Arnold, and they started for the third time.
Arnold cowered down, waiting for the morning to finish. It seemed long and he felt frazzled, but the knowledge that he was back with his keepers gave him a great sense of security. In his heart he knew that this sense was quite false, for the murderer was persistent, coldblooded and undoubtedly close at hand. But Arnold had faith in numbers: to keep close . . . the killer could hardly do away with all six of them? Fort Knox would surely then find her numbers amiss.
When the morning was over at last, they took Arnold back to the dormitory in the crowd. There, sitting on the bed, wrapped in an eiderdown, Arnold told them what had happened the night before.
‘I found an old house up the valley and I stayed there and in the morning when it got light I started walking back. I met some blokes – gamekeepers – I told ’em I’d got lost and they said I was stupid but they didn’t ask any questions. But look—’
Arnold groped in his jeans pocket and pulled out the leaflet depicting Boris and his manager.
‘This—’ He stabbed his finger at the manager’s portrait. ‘This is the dead body I saw in the lake.’
They were all gratifyingly stunned.
‘Are you sure?’
‘No doubt about it. That was the body I saw! It says here he’s Boris’s manager, but he’s not, is he? Boris’s manager is another geezer.’
Christian took the leaflet and studied it closely.
‘No. You’re right. But that couple who are minding Boris say they are called Turkin. I know that. I heard Mr Harlech introduce them to one of the teachers. Mr and Mrs Igor Turkin.’
‘Let’s ask Boris,’ Jodie said.
‘Show him the leaflet,’ Nutty said. ‘They’ve murdered the real Igor Turkin and are pretending to be him.’
‘What’s the motive?’
‘Boris,’ John Pike said. ‘Making money out of Boris. He’s worth a fortune, or will be at the rate he’s going on, and they get ten per cent, or whatever agents get.’
Boris had his head in the wardrobe, choosing his clothes for the concert.
‘Ask him,’ said Hoomey.
‘How?’
‘Show him the leaflet.’
‘Steady on,’ said Christian. ‘If this is true – and we don’t know it is – we don’t want them to know we’ve sussed it, do we? Arnold’s having a rough enough time as it is. I think we ought to sit on it until we can get a bit more proof.’
‘Like what?’ asked Nutty. ‘Arnold’s corpse?’
‘No. We’ve got to keep Arnold right with us; it’s the only way he’s safe.’
‘Fort Knox has relaxed. We’ll take him with us this afternoon and keep him under our noses all the time.’
‘Yes, in with the crowd.’
‘But does Boris know what’s going on?’
The question was in all their minds. Yet Boris seemed to have a benign and innocent presence. It was hard to believe that he knew a murder had been committed. He knew they were hiding Arnold, but it occurred to them all that he didn’t know who from.
When they went down to lunch, leaving Arnold in the wardrobe, Mrs Knox met them at the bottom of the stairs and actually congratulated them on their handling of Boris.
‘He seems so much happier now he’s with you. Those managers of his are a very serious bunch – they do no good, pressurizing him. We’ve all noticed how much more relaxed he is. Well done, boys.’
Meanwhile Arnold locked himself in the bedroom and changed into some dry clothes. He lay down on the best bed and pulled the eiderdown over him and dozed off. He dreamed he was in the hall with the white skulls looking down on him from all sides. The dead deer were saying, ‘Watch out, watch out,’ and in his dream he heard the sound of the door handle being turned. He woke up in a sweat, opened his eyes and saw the bedroom door handle gently turning. The bed was only a couple of metres from the door. He stared at it, pop-eyed, and heard soft breathing, and the slight scuffle of a body pressing against the firmness of the lock. He held his breath. Of course! His antagonist only had to remove him while everyone was downstairs – down the fire-escape . . . a skirmish behind the outhouses and his body could be dumped in the heather as no doubt it was meant to have been dumped the night before!
Arnold knew he had never lived as dangerously as this. He had only turned the key in the lock as an afterthought. He lay in a cold sweat, eyes fixed on the old-fashioned porcelain doorknob. It was tried twice more, turning slowly until it came to the resistance of the lock, a long silence, then the creaking of a floorboard told of retreat. Another door closed along the corridor . . . the door to the fire-escape? Was it really Boris’s minder who was after him, or someone else he had no knowledge of? He lay with his heart thumping like a piston, pure funk and self-pity overwhelming him.
When the others came back with a selection of lunch (a large dollop of shepherd’s pie and steamed treacle pudding in the bottom of a violin case) they found him shaking and tearful.
‘It’s really serious – we ought to tell somebody,’ Jodie suggested. ‘It’s not a joke any more.’
‘What do you think, Arnold?’ Christian asked.
‘I’d rather stay with you.’
‘It’s a terrible risk.’
‘Not this afternoon, is
it? In the orchestra? We could think about it tonight, later . . .’
Arnold didn’t want to be handed back to Authority. No-one would show him much sympathy. He had told too many tales in the past. The others, honest and God-fearing as they were, had no knowledge of how the police treated such as he, who scattered lies to hide his passage as guests scattered confetti at a wedding. His past was catching up with him.
‘Well, it’s true – there’s no time now. We’ve got to be on the coach in a quarter of an hour. We’ve scraped together a bit of uniform for you – shirt and tie and these trousers – bit large probably but they’ll have to do. Get changed and eat your dinner and you can carry the violin case out to the coach. We’ll keep right with you.’
Already, with the gang round him, Arnold felt better. His confidence flooded back. But the others were now slightly itchy, feeling their responsibilities closing in: the joke had gone farther than they had intended. However more immediate worries were looming: the first concert was an occasion for nerves and – horrors—!
‘She’s counting everyone on the bus!’ Hoomey reported back.
Arnold was already stowing his empty violin case in the luggage compartment. The two coaches were parked side by side. Christian grabbed Arnold and propelled him towards the second coach where another teacher was counting them on board – anything to avoid Fort Knox.
Nutty summed up the situation. ‘There’ll be too many and there’ll be a recount and Arn’ll get discovered. Here, I’ll stay behind. The coaches’ll go and I’ll get a lift with one of the cars – say I forgot something – went back for it and missed the bus.’
‘Suppose you can’t get a lift! You mustn’t go missing! There’s lots of cymbal-crashing this afternoon.’
‘Don’t be daft, of course I’ll get a lift! Get Arnold to unload my stuff.’
It was the best move in the circumstances. Arnold was counted by the teacher who wasn’t looking for a boy with hair like a lavatory brush – she then went across and added her numbers to Mrs Knox’s and as the tally was correct the two buses departed. Nutty was left in the courtyard, eyeing up the possibilities.
Not all the adults were going. Mrs Knox said she was going to spend the afternoon with her paperwork and went back to the house. Mr Harlech was going but had an enquiring and bossy nature which made Nutty feel it would be best to avoid him, and quite a few of the parents were squashing five to a car which was no go. She decided to ask one of the teachers, a lady harpist, who was travelling to the concert with her harp. She was going to give a recital in the evening in the same hall.
She was a stringy, twittery lady called Mildred Manners with a rather ancient estate car. The harp filled all the back and overlapped rather into the front seat, where Nutty invited herself.
‘Of course, my dear, I’ll be glad of the company. And you can help me with my harp. You look a strong girl.’
Oh great, thought Nutty. She was a strong girl, and revelled in it, but sometimes she wished she was a willowy wand like Jodie. Not that Jodie was willowy by nature. Nutty, used to being the boss, sometimes found that she was doing what Jodie decided. She liked her friends in the orchestra, the best reason for staying: no-one could accuse her of being musical. Christian and Jodie really worked at it, and John Pike was brilliant. Where he practised Nutty had no idea, making that sort of noise. When she let off her cymbals at home the lady next door hammered on the wall with her poker.
‘Must be difficult, being a harpist. Moving it around, I mean,’ she ventured.
‘Yes. Like the double bass. We should have been flautists. What are you, dear?’
‘Only cymbals.’
‘Oh, what fun. It must be satisfying to make a really loud noise.’
‘Yes, it’s lovely.’
She wasn’t a bad old stick. Poor harpists could do no more than ripple along, however hard they pinged and plucked. A harp was a grand piano standing up, pulled instead of pushed and with nothing like the power. At least Boris didn’t have his piano in his luggage. Nutty wondered if Miss Manners knew anything about Boris’s manager. She was on the committee and must be in the know. She decided to fish.
‘The Russian boy is ace, isn’t he?’
‘Extraordinarily talented. Aren’t we lucky to have him? He was being acclaimed in Moscow, and Mr Harlech happened to be over there when he won the big prize. Mr Harlech found he was staying in the same hotel as Boris’s manager so he got friendly with him, offered him hospitality over here if he would like to come. He’s very quick-thinking, Mr Harlech.’
‘Is that Mr Turkin, Boris’s manager?’
Miss Manners frowned.
‘Well, there was a bit of a mix-up. The Mr Turkin with Boris now isn’t the manager Mr Harlech met. The one Mr Harlech met in Russia came over with Boris and Mr Harlech met him, and they had a group of friends with them. But apparently the manager was taken ill, and went off to some hospital in London – this was just before we were to start the tour – and fortunately the friend said he would step in and take his place. So we decided to call him Mr Turkin instead – his own name is quite unpronounceable. And of course the name Turkin is on the publicity as Boris’s manager so it was easier not to change it.’
‘I thought Mr Turkin wasn’t the same man as in the photographs,’ Nutty remarked. Her voice was unconcerned – ‘I should be an actress!’ she thought, for she could feel her pulse hammering with excitement. They had really cracked it! The present Mr Turkin had done for Boris’s manager, chucked him in the lake and taken his job. No doubt when they got back and Mr Harlech wanted to renew acquaintance it would be discovered that the poor ill Russian had flown home for further treatment. The Russians would think he was still in England. He could disappear without any trouble at all.
Nutty stared out of the window to cool her excitement. As soon as they got back tonight they would have to go to Mr Harlech and tell him the story. Take the pressure off poor Arnold, the only one who could give evidence.
Mildred had taken a short cut. ‘I’m sure this little road is quicker – I took it when I was on holiday – nicer too. I hate motorways, don’t you?’
It wound steeply uphill, hairpinning between banks of heather and stands of pine. Rain flicked across the windscreen. Nutty started to bite her fingernails with excitement, impatient to get back to the others and tell them of her discovery. Mildred clashed her gears into a more amiable whine and her old car ground on over the potholes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE ORCHESTRA WAS tuning up. The big hall was full and the best rows all filled with the educational big-wigs and music buffs of the Scottish Highlands. Arnold, feeling somewhat constrained in his borrowed orchestra uniform, discovered he was a part of ‘the cultural heritage of music-making countries from all over Europe’. There was a fair amount of speechifying first and, the drive having been much longer than they had expected, It was early evening when the concert started.
Much to Arnold’s concern, Nutty hadn’t yet appeared.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ John Pike said. ‘She’s got nothing to do for forty-five minutes. She’s bound to be here by then. Keep your nut down, for heaven’s sake.’
Arnold shrunk between the cliffs of John Pike’s timpani. He was glad Pike could be so confident. Hoomey was fussing because Nutty wasn’t there to prompt him.
‘What if she doesn’t come?’
‘Arnie’ll do it,’ John Pike said.
Arnold felt his stomach zooming up and down with fright. The thought was almost as bad as watching door handles turning. He glanced at Pike and saw he was grinning. He couldn’t argue because this is where he had longed to be, in the bosom of the orchestra, and as the music started crashing out all round him he felt comforted, cocooned by the noise. It was a wall all round him, cutting off danger. The magnificent Jodie was sawing away below him, yellow hair tossing, and round the bend the noble Christian was throwing a tune back at the violins, repeating their theme like a mating bird, over and over. The decibels of John P
ike’s drums moved up to danger level in his right ear. What a racket! Arnold found it hard to credit the amazing company he had homed into.
When the piece finished the hall burst into an even louder din of appreciation, clapping and stamping. All the players turned up different music. Arnold turned agitated eyes up to John Pike.
‘No cymbals in this. Relax.’
Arnold relaxed.
John Pike bent down towards him in the gathering hush. ‘But if she doesn’t turn up for the next one, mate, you’ll be in business.’
‘Funny,’ said Mildred Manners, as the car went bouncing over large potholes and Nutty was obliged to turn round to try and fend off the harp that threatened to brain her, ‘I thought this lane went down to the main road. It seems to be petering out.’
Truly observed . . . the lane turned into dirt and finished at a padlocked gate in a stone wall.
‘Oh dear.’
Mildred went into reverse, turning, and the back wheels sank into a bog. She went into first and revved up and the wheels flew round spewing out black muck in all directions.
‘I think you’ll have to push, dear. I’ll try again.’
‘It’s in too deep,’ Nutty said, having a look.
‘Oh, I’m sure not! Just give it a try!’
The car was much too heavy, Nutty could see, for even her beef to make any difference, but she did as she was told, put her body to the rear of the car and got drenched in black squidge for her pains.
‘Oh dear.’
Mildred got out to look.
‘We’ll have to put something under the wheels, won’t we?’
The harp, Nutty thought crossly.
She glanced at her watch. ‘Cripes!’
Gloom turned to panic. ‘The concert starts in forty minutes!’
‘Oh dear. Silly me!’
There was no farm or habitation within sight, only the everlasting hill covered with bracken and heather.
‘We’ll have to pull up stuff and put it under the wheels,’ Nutty decided. ‘Cover up the mud.’
‘Oh, but my hands!’ complained Mildred.
Nutty started pulling. The cymbals didn’t need a lot of finesse after all.
